Developing surveys is an effective tactic for keeping your finger on the pulse of your target audience, whether you’re trying to reach customers, employees, or members of your community. When you gather data, analyze it, and take meaningful action to respond to it, you can increase engagement and strengthen existing relationships. So, put together a few questions, post them to your group and watch the valuable data start pouring in.

Not so fast. Like any other business initiative, you need a plan and somebest practices to get feedback you can use. Conducting a poll is one of those classic “garbage in/garbage out” scenarios that can be costly and counterproductive if you jump right in: You’re only going to get out useful, valuable information if you put in the effort, time, and implement a proper strategy. And in an interconnected world, the only way to do it right is to do it in real-time, using social principles that drive action. Using a meeting survey app will help you do this.

Here’s how you should do it:

Define Your Goals: What information do you want to obtain? When you can identify the exact types of data you want to collect, you’re better able to draft 2-3 key poll questions that get to the point.

Properly Target Your Audience: Those who already follow your brand and are members of your online community are ideal candidates for eliciting feedback. Current customers, qualified leads, and tire-kickers feel more encouraged to provide insight if they feel the content is directly targeted to their interests or needs.

Incentivize Your Survey: Many brands offer a discount, gift, or other award in exchange for responding to questions. You don’t have to invest a fortune, but you do have to provide something of value. One option is to provide a free content download, such as an informative ebook or white paper, as a thank you for providing answers. Even the promise of delivering immediate results as they’re gathered gives participants an incentive to check back to review the outcome.

Know What to Share and When: Those that participate in discussions built around fun or intriguing topics are typically very interested in the results that you collect. Share the insights you’ve gained at the moment you receive them, and your survey may go viral – giving you even more data to analyze. If possible, post the results of your inquiries on social media in real time: Audiences love instant gratification.

Consider Private Social Media Networks: At times, you’ll want more control over your survey and participants’ conversations about it. You can implement a private social media network to limit members of the group, so you’re able to target specific personas and users.

Clearly, it’s not enough to simply organize a survey: You need to develop it around social principles and use a meeting survey app if you expect to extract useful information that will drive better decision making and help you reach your target audience. A socially focused approach is key, and these best practices for meeting surveys will guide you in developing surveys that achieve these goals.

However, putting your plan into action requires you to implement powerful technology. MeetingPulse is a meeting survey app that enables you to gather the right information, through the right social channels – so you can turn it into meaningful action. Please contact us for more information, orsign up to receive blog updates and our educational ebook.

We want 100% of your audience to be engaged, which is why we developed MeetingPulse to work in a web browser. Your audience can join from their iPhone, their Amazon fire tablet, their Linux laptop, their Windows PC or any other device
that has a web browser.

Can I customize MeetingPulse?

To make MeetingPulse a seamless addition to your meetings, we offer custom themes. We'll use your logo and your colors for the attendee and broadcast view. Your company name will be included in the webpage's title.

Your meeting
can have its own domain. This is great if you are going to promote your meeting offline. For example, you could use acme2018.com instead of meet.ps/acme-all-hands